Conventional saws include a blade or cutter for cutting material while the material, to be cut, generally rests in a holding fixture as the cut is taking place. In the typical existing saw, the material is not in motion while the cut is occurring. This typically means that the blade or cutter and guards are configured to be able to extend the entire diameter of the material to completely cut it. For example in one configuration, a twenty-four inch diameter steel bar could then require at least a forty-eight inch blade on an abrasive saw or throat in a band saw. Therefore, such a saw configuration requires that the blade or throat be at least twice the diameter of the material to be cut.
In another configuration, an abrasive saw rotates around the center on a shaft while the band saw rotates in a loop on pulleys. A vertical band saw could then cut a twenty-four inch diameter piece with at least a twenty-four inch diameter throat on the saw. As the power requirements increase with the size of the blade, saws with a twenty-four inch capacity often require a 100 HP motor.
Also, the existing saws are frequently supplied with coolant to reduce the temperature induced in the material being cut, as the cutting action by these saws can damage the material during routine cutting operations, particularly if there is no accounting for the temperature effects.
Other saw designs include a self-centering chuck, also known as a scroll chuck, which includes dogs (usually called jaws) interconnected via a scroll gear (scroll plate), to hold onto a tool or workpiece. Because the self-centering chucks often have three jaws, the term three-jaw chuck, without other qualification, is often understood by machinists to mean a self-centering three-jaw chuck. The term universal chuck also refers to a self-centering, three-jaw chuck. These chucks are best suited to grip circular or hexagonal cross-sections when very fast, reasonably accurate (±0.005 inch [0.125 mm] TIR) centering is desired.
Other rotating cutting structures have been used in the industry, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,207, U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,092, U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,603, U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,605, U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,848, U.S. Pat. No. 7,886,640, and U.S. Publication No. 20030226432, and discussed below.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,207, issued Dec. 31, 1974, to Avrutin, et al., discloses a device comprising a rotor having an end adapted to secure a workpiece. The rotor has opposing circular supporting surfaces which are flat, parallel and perpendicular to the axis of its rotation. Each of the supporting surfaces is connected to the corresponding supporting surface of the casing and is separated from the latter by a layer of working medium supplied under pressure. The rotor is connected to the drive by means of members whose stiffness in the axial direction is negligibly small as compared to the stiffness of the working medium layer, thus reducing to a minimum effect produced by axial vibrations of the drive on the axial accuracy of the rotor rotation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,092, issued Jul. 19, 1977, to Kaltenbach, discloses a table-mounted circular saw. A support has portions which define a working plane, and an arm is pivotally mounted on this support at one end, and the arm carries a circular saw blade which can be moved toward and away from the working plane as the arm is pivoted. Cooperating mechanical elements are provided on the arm and on the support and are power-driven so as to pivot the arm with the blade towards and away from the working plane. These mechanical elements may be rack and pinion constructions or they may be screw spindle and spindle-nut constructions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,603, issued Jan. 25, 1983, to Gebel, et al., discloses a method for positioning and rotating a workpiece shaped like a body of rotation and having a plane face, comprising the following steps: positioning the workpiece on axial and radial supports; transmitting the torque from a rotary driving member to the workpiece due to the forces of friction developed therebetween; and feeding ultrasonic mechanical vibrations to at least one of the supports, said vibrations being fed to any one of the supports in the direction substantially parallel to or at an angle not exceeding 10 degrees with the line of contact between the workpiece and said support. An arrangement implementing this method comprises separate axial and radial supports, the radial support being constituted by two parts spaced apart through a certain angle and having the profile, in the working portion, congruent to the cylindrical profile of the workpiece surface. The arrangement is further provided with a frictional rotary driving member contacting with the workpiece to be machined, and with an electromechanical magnetostriction converter operating within the ultrasonic range and having a waveguide rigidly connected to both converter and support, mechanical vibrations being fed thereto.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,605, issued Aug. 21, 1990, to Geller, et al., discloses an apparatus for cutting a workpiece includes a rotatable blade and a rotatable workpiece holder mounted on a pivotal swing arm and rotated in a selected direction by drive elements. The swing arm pivots downward into an engagement position so that the workpiece is urged into resilient contact with the cutting surface, and radial irregularities of the surface of the workpiece are resiliently tracked by the pivoting swing arm.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,848, issued Dec. 18, 2001, to Nishio, et al., discloses a circular saw cutting machine. In the operation of cutting a metallic work material, if the rotation of an electric motor 21 is reduced by a reduction gear mechanism including a gear mechanism and transmitted to a main shaft and the metallic work material is cut by a circular saw attached to one end of the main shaft, the moment of inertia I of the main shaft while an outside diameter of said circular saw is D (mm), the number of revolution is N (rpm) and a cutting force per tooth as a component of force in tangential direction is F (kgf). By so setting, the initial cut positions of the work material and in a region in which the number of cutting related teeth Zi is 1.0 or less at the final cut positions, the moment of inertia is high compared with a cutting torque applied to the main shaft by intermittent cutting resistance, so that the rotational variation of the main shaft is very small. Likewise, in a region in which Zi is high, reproduced chatter is suppressed.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,886,640, issued Feb. 15, 2011, to Liao, discloses a rotational cutting machine which has a base that includes a first motive power source to rotate the cutting blade. Near the cutting blade is a fixing tool that tightly holds an object to be cut, and on the side the fixing tool is a second motive power source to turn the fixing tool together with the object to be cut.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20030226432, published Dec. 11, 2003, to Majeski, discloses an apparatus for manufacturing a plurality of cores from a workpiece. In one embodiment, the apparatus includes a support structure for supporting the workpiece. A cutting assembly includes an arbor with a plurality of cutting blades spaced equidistant apart. Either one, or both, of the support structure and the cutting assembly may be moved toward the other, such that the cutting assembly engages the workpiece. As the cutting assembly engages the workpiece to cut the workpiece, the workpiece is rotated so that the blades of the cutting assembly cut the workpiece into the plurality of cores.
As discussed above, the above art is complicated and does not provide an axially moveable chuck to rotate the material in conjunction with a laterally moveable cutting element. The present invention permits a smaller saw blade to be utilized, reduces the horsepower required to a fraction of that previously required, and inherently provides such improved temperature control that prior art temperature controls may not be necessary at all. Consequently, there remains a need for an improved cutting apparatus. Those skilled in the art have long sought and will appreciate the present invention which addresses these and other problems.